Effect of layer shift on the out-of-plane permeability of 0°/90° noncrimp fabrics

Layer shift has a great effect on the permeability which is a key parameter in resin transfer molding. In this paper, nine different unit cells were modeled based on the range of layer shift and decomposed into zones of characteristic yarn arrangement, respectively. For each unit cell, a set of equations was derived allowing description of the local permeability of each zone as a function of geometrical yarn parameters. The overall permeability was then modeled as a mixture of permeabilities of different zones with the electrical resistance analogy. Excellent agreement was found between predictions and experiment. Both results indicated that the channel flow had a dominant role in the whole flow through the fabrics. And the permeability values reached maximum when the empty regions were interconnected between upper and lower layers. In addition, the effect of fiber volume fraction on the differences of two extreme cases was also investigated.